Day 12: The Beatles!

Anne and I are pretty sure that this photo was taken in Rhyl. The houses look very like the houses in the photo further down the page, so it seems likely. 

Yes, we wore our underpants as shorts. With no shirt. Deal with it. 

We had a full day planned for Wednesday, but took time for the short drive to Rhyl and a walk along its promenade for old times' sake before we hit the road. 

You can see windmills on the horizon in this photo. There is a wind farm 4.7 miles offshore between Prestatyn and Rhyl. THere are 30 turbines and it is quite a sight. 

The steps obviously get covered by the tide and are very mossy. It took a while before I found a spot that I dared navigate to the sand, as they are very slippery. A broken anything I didn't need.

These are the houses that look very similar to the ones in the first photo. The beach itself and all of the structures and the promenade are quite different. According to trustworthy sources (our host in Prestatyn and The Guardian) Rhyl is a much deteriorated town from its heyday, but is making an effort to improve its reputation. 

We headed up to Liverpool, where I was to explore the Beatles' Story, and which Jeff was prepared to tolerate. 

Pretty sure this is the bridge over the Mersey, famed river of song.

We wended our way to Albert Dock, only making a few wrong turns, and paid a princely sum for parking. But I didn't particularly care, because I was about to enter Mecca.

Happy much?

I spent several hours reading and listening to every word, while Jeff did the quick walk-through and then followed me around taking photos. He was actually very sweet about it, even though he isn't fond of the Beatles, because he knows how much it meant to me.

John's piano and guitar.

There was another little part of the museum at the other end of Albert Dock, so we had a lovely walk in the sun along the river. These padlocks mostly have the names of couples with their wedding dates engraved on them.

It was another beautiful afternoon and we passed lots of people sitting on benches, watching the river and enjoying the sunshine. The English do this a lot.

We headed further north after this bliss, hoping to arrive at the LDS temple in Preston in time to attend a session. Unfortunately, we had navigation issues again and arrived too late, so we walked around the grounds and took some photos before heading even further north.

We were hoping to get to Brigsteer, a small village in the Lake District, before dark. It was quite remote and we entered the village down a steep, narrow road (is it ever anything else?) just as twilight fell. The cottage we were seeking had no address, just "______ Cottage,  Brigsteer," which was a little daunting. I, thinking Brigsteer would be a tiny village with maybe ten houses, had thought we could cruise the village until we found it, but it proved to be not that easy. Not only that, but telephone reception was bad, so we couldn't call the host. We passed a man walking along the road and asked him if he knew of the house and he didn't. I did one of my famous ten-point turns and we headed back the way we came. We tried the phone again and managed to get through. The man on his walk had passed the cottage and realised it was the one for which we were searching, so he knocked on the door and told the host we were looking for him. Between his kind action and the directions of the host, we finally made it to the cottage. It was very old, perhaps 300 years. The staircase was only about 18 inches wide and the walls were about two feet thick. Many of the houses in the village were like this.
We had packed a lot into this day and were very happy to go to bed.